saying goodbye to someone

it's been almost a month since i've posted on here, i'm off by one day. i have kind of neglected doing any work on changes (my trans allegory superhero script if you have forgotten) but that's a whole other can of worms that maybe i'll touch on in a later post cause i need to work through that shit as well. this post is not about that, it is about me finding out that one of the most important people in my life is moving to florida in just a couple months.

let me tell you about this person because if you are ellie or lydia or grace and you're reading this you don't know who she is so i will set the scene. i'm 6 years old in kindergarten and my parents sign me up for piano lessons because they want me, a 6 year old, to be well rounded or some other insane shit that they've impressed on me from a very young age. the lessons are at this lady's house and i'm really scared to go to them because the lady's name is vickie and that's the name of the evil babysitter from the fairly oddparents so what if she is scary like her!!! my vickie was NOT scary like her, she was actually the nicest lady i have ever met to this day.

i took piano lessons with vickie from kindergarten through seventh grade. by the time i got to seventh grade we were so close that she would pick me up from school on fridays when i had my lesson, i would have an after school snack in her kitchen with her daughter who's four years older than me and the snack was usually something vickie had baked (baked very carefully too because she was very careful about my peanut allergy), and then i would have my lesson. after seventh grade my schedule got too busy for piano lessons but vickie was still very present in my life: she was the accompanist for every school choir in the town and the accompanist at my church too so i still saw her at least once a week during the school year. when i was a freshman i decided i was gonna sing in my church choir (terrible idea cause i fucking hated church and christianity but i got to see vickie by doing it) and she would drive me to and from the choir rehearsals on thursday nights. i also saw her four or five times a week once i got to high school because her main job was accompanying the high school choir. basically this lady has been in my life for like 12 years now and she is as ever present as any friend or family member would be.

taking piano lessons for 8 years with vickie gave me such an invaluable foundation of musical knowledge that i definitely wouldn't be the person i am today without it. she singlehandedly sparked the deep love for music i have today and i owe every piece of musical knowledge that i have to her. everything that i've managed to teach myself on instruments other than the piano i was able to do because of what she taught me. she would say otherwise, but she is the complete basis for all musical skill i have today and i wouldn't be on the path i am today without her.

not only did she give me musical knowledge, she also has given me more love than i know what to do with. she's driven me home from places, brought so many baked goods to school and given them to me, and given me hundreds and thousands of hugs. she and hayden are the only two people i've found that actually hug me back with the force i hug others at. this woman has given me so much more motherly love and support than my own mother has in the past few years it's laughable. she and richter (my choir director) were like my school mom and dad the past few years because i'd go into their office every chance i got to tell them about all of my problems and all the people that were pissing me off. this lady has given me so, SO much love, so you can imagine how fucking upset i was yesterday when my mom told me that she was moving to FLORIDA before the coming school year starts.

i had been imagining so many things about my senior year and vickie was constantly there. being a senior in choir is something i've looked forward to for a while and she's not gonna be there. she's not gonna be at my graduation and she's not gonna accompany little shop of horrors when we do it in the spring. it's so hard to articulate the hole in my heart that she is going to leave. something is going to be so obviously missing from my life and i don't know how to deal with it. i know that i won't be alone in how i feel, in fact i know that there's probably only one person that's gonna be more upset than me and it's gonna be richter so we'll deal with it together.

vickie has always told me so clearly that i'm special to her and i've never appreciated that more than now. i haven't talked to her yet about her moving but i'll see her on thursday and i'll probably cry but it's ok because she'll give me a big hug. whenever i've made jokes about me graduating and finally leaving her behind and calling her a crazy old lady she's punched me on the arm and told me that i'm never getting rid of her and given me a kiss on the head. i know we both have the determination to stay in each other's lives, so we'll make it work somehow. i've been planning for a long time for my first professional tattoo i get to be her handwriting from a thank you card she gave me a long time ago that says "you are awesome!" and when i get that i know it'll help me deal with her leaving. this shit is fucking hard, man. i'm gonna be sad for a while but it's because i love her so much.

here is the card, she's thanking me for brownies i made that looked like piano keys that i gave to her when she broke her wrist in 2014. she signed it mrs schlosser cause i was like 10 but we are on first name terms now lol. i'll probably get her little smiley face tattooed too because it's so cute :)